Don’t Trust Editing Software to Do Your Dissertation Editing for You

Hop onto the web, and you’ll be inundated with websites that promise that there’s no need to hire a professional editor to do your dissertation editing. Amongst the many websites that offer some helpful and not so helpful tips on editing your own work, one of the most popular “solutions” to self-editing is to use editing software.

Whether it’s a time-saving measure or an attempt to save some cash on hiring a real editor, the fact of the matter is that trusting such software can cost you not only a lot more of both of those things, but it can also cost you your reputation and dash your academic goals. Here are just a handful of the reasons why:

Unlike a professional editor who is continually improving and honing his or her craft, editing software is often a static tool that may only change with any updates or upgrades that might become available in the future. This means that the software isn’t going to be as thorough as an editor.

Before you even put your pen to paper to create your dissertation, you hopefully took a good look through the rules that you must abide by in order for your dissertation to meet the approval of your professor and of the school. The software that you use obviously can’t go through the rules that you must follow, and so that part of the editing process will be completely left out—a mistake which will render your weeks or months of hard, tireless work useless.

3. Editing Software May Promise to Use the Same Tools as a Professional Thesis Editor, but Do You Know How to Use Them?

Here’s the big claim that most editing software products out there make: professional editors use them, so why can’t you?

Simple: chances are, you aren’t a professional editor. Professional editors have had years of education and experience learning how to edit content like dissertations, novels, and other areas of specialty, and so they’ll know which features the software offers that prove to be the most useful and best utilized for your work. Those who are uneducated and inexperienced, however, will likely have no idea just what they should be doing. And let’s face it: most, if not all professional freelance editors don’t actually use software anyhow!

4. Unless Knowledgeable, the Reports Produced Can Be Misunderstood or Misleading

Most software programs will provide you with “informative reports” that will advise you what needs to be edited, and what doesn’t. Not only can these reports be incredibly misleading (or even downright incorrect), but they can be easily misunderstood, and unfortunately you’ll have no one to ask exactly what a particular editing comment meant.

On the whole, dissertation editing software can cause more confusion than anything, which often leads those who were looking for a quick and inexpensive way to get their paper edited to still then enlist in the help of a professional editor. As such, it’s the Stickler’s recommendation to save yourself the stress and frustration and have your dissertation properly edited by a professional editor in the first place.

Are you looking for professional dissertation editing services? Request a quote from Stickler Editing today by clicking on the big green button below…